All language subtitles for Mayday.S03E09.Kid.in.the.Cockpit.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

A freight train
is out of control.

- Get on the phone.
Tell 'em we got a runaway train.
- 7551 to [indistinct]!

Its brakes can't hold it
as it rockets down a mountain.

Mayday! Mayday!
We're doing 90 mph! 9-0!

Now thousands of tons of steel
and freight are heading
straight for a small town.

We're gonna die
on that curve!

An innocent mistake risks
the lives of everyone onboard,

and many more in the town below.

- 3,000?
- We're not getting any oxygen!

We have the terrain alarm.

- Aero Peru 603...
- We are in an emergency.

San Bernardino,
California.

A quiet suburban town
at the foot
of the San Gabriel Mountains.

It's a great place
to raise a family,

in between the emptiness
of the Mojave Desert
and the bustle of Los Angeles.

When we had problems
in the neighbourhood,
we could go to one another.

And... it was a very nice
neighbourhood.

But in 1989, San Bernardino
is rocked by two disasters.

Six people are killed,

18 houses
are completely destroyed.

It begins
with an out-of-control train.

Sixty!

Seventy! Eighty!

And ends with a raging fire.

You could see a huge cloud
of black smoke in the air.

The scene looked
like Dante's Inferno.

The disasters appear linked,

but they happened
more than a week apart.

Investigators comb
through the wreckage
to find the hidden connection.

Help! Somebody help me!

They uncover a series
of shocking decisions,

which have deadly consequences
for some,

and scar a town forever.

Early morning, May 12, 1989.

On a railroad siding
in the desert,

a freight train waits
to head up over California's
San Gabriel Mountains.

Frank Holland
is the chief engineer

for Southern Pacific
freight train number 7551 East.

My job as an engineer
is to get on the train,

operate the locomotives,

um... obey the rules, speeds,

slow down and restrictions,

and get the train
from point A to point B.

His work on this trip
actually began the night
before, at the Mojave Rail
Yard.

Some of Southern Pacific's
freight trains
are put together here,

picking up crews and engines
to take them across the
country.

Holland is here
to collect the paperwork
he'll need for the journey.

Hey, Frank.

Hey.

Holland was promoted
to chief engineer
three years before.

Okay... clearance form,

train orders, train list
and a tonnage profile.

His paperwork tells him
he's hauling 69 freight cars,

each one weighing 54,431 kilos.

Holland also learns
that the cars are all filled
with the same thing: trona.

It's a non-toxic chemical
used in fertilizer.

So you start
making your calculations

on what kind of horsepower
you're gonna have to have

to take that train
down that hill,

and that will tell you
at what speed you can go.

Thanks.

Have a good one.

All together,
Holland's paperwork tells him
he's hauling

more than 3.5 million kilos
of cargo -

more than 10 jumbo jets.

The cargo's final destination
is South America.

Today,
Holland's only taking it as far
as the West Colton Terminal,

near Los Angeles.

To do that
he'll have to haul the cargo

up the San Gabriel Mountains
and through the Cajon Pass.

Then he'll carefully slow
his huge train as it winds down
the mountain.

Okay, guys,
we're going down to West Colton.
We got 69 cars,

filled with... trona.

Everett Crown is the conductor
of 7551.

He'll sit up in the front engine
to assist Holland.

Allan Reiss is the brakeman
this morning.
He'll ride two engines back.

Between them,
the three men have
almost 50 years of experience

working the trains
with Southern Pacific.

To make sure he has enough power
to move his train
up and down the mountain,

Holland has asked
for a little assistance.

Southern Pacific dispatchers
send him two helper engines.

Lawrence Hill is the engineer
at the back.

Robert Waterbury
is his brakeman.

While they've run this route
before,

it's not where
they normally work.

They don't know
the weight of the cargo
they're helping to haul.

And they don't ask.

7551 East now has four engines
up front and two behind.

With the last two in place,
the train is all set to go.

Helper calling head end.

- Head end.
- Coupled and... ready to go.

Roger that.

7551 East
slowly gathers steam.

In just an hour and a half,
it'll reach the top
of the mountains,

the 1,300-metre-high Cajon Pass.

Helper to head end.

- Head end.
- We've cleared the siding.

Thank you.

On the other side
of the mountains,

the town of San Bernardino
is slowly coming to life.

The Muscoy section
is a fairly new development

on the northwestern edge
of the town.

It's filled
with single-storey homes
and growing families.

Christopher Shaw is waking up
at 2326 Duffy Street.

It's his mother's house,

but after a fight
with his girlfriend,
he'd spent the night.

Across the street,

Ruth Green has succeeded
in getting three children
out of bed and off to school.

Her only daughter, Lavon,
is staying home.

It's just my daughter and I,

and we're just making ready
for what we considered
a normal morning.

We had had our breakfast
and were straightening up
in the kitchen.

One of the only things
people don't like

about this part
of San Bernardino
is the train tracks.

Trains race by on top
of a six-metre-high levee.

Some of the houses on Duffy St.
back right up to the tracks.

When the homes
went up for sale,

the realtor was showing
my husband a home

that was on the same side
of the street as the tracks.

The tracks would've been behind
our home. And he said no,
he didn't want that.

Just after 7:00 a.m.,

7551 East reaches
the highest point of its trip,
the Cajon Pass.

It's all downhill from here.

The pass is a vital rail link
between Los Angeles
and the rest of the world.

It's one of only three ways
to get through the mountains.

Dozens of trains
rumble through here every day.

Traditionally in railroading,

mountain railroaders
are respected...

as the big guys, the tough guys.

Because they have
the most demanding job.

Cajon Pass is one
of the toughest mountain passes

for railroaders to deal with
in the entire United States.

So many trains go over it,

and it is extremely demanding,

that everyone has to be
on their toes 100% all the time.

- No chance.
- No?
- No.

Engineer Frank Holland
and Conductor Everett Crown
have the train right on time.

There hasn't been
any communication
between the men at the front

and the two men at the back
of the train
since the trip began.

There's been no need.

Everything's running smoothly.

Now comes the most critical part
of the journey:

slowing the massive train
as it starts down the mountain.

What we do when we run
a train from...

the Mohave area to Colton

is basically we drive it
off a cliff.

At that point,

the track tips over,

and goes downhill
at a very steep grade:

2.2%.

And for trains,

2.2 feet down in every 100 feet

is like falling off a cliff.

As 7551 East
begins heading downhill,

the crews still believe
it's a normal run.

What they don't know
is that their train
is already out of control

and they have no way
to slow it down.

May 12, 1989.

Just after 7:00 in the morning,

Southern Pacific freight train
7551 East begins
the long, slow descent

from the top
of the San Gabriel mountains.

The massive train is hauling
69 cars full of freight.

At the bottom of the hill,

the sleepy town
of San Bernardino, California.

As the tracks
start dipping downhill,

Engineer Frank Holland
first applies
his dynamic brakes.

They slow each
of the six engines,

reducing the speed
of the entire train.

He's only allowed to go 48 km/h
through the pass.

He checks in with Lawrence Hill,

the engineer
in the helper engine
at the back of the train,

to make sure
he can maintain his speed.

Calling the helper.

- This is the helper.
- You got all your dynamics?

Yeah, I'm in full.

Roger that.

The first part
of the downhill run
twists back and forth 56 times.

The friction from the turns
helps slow the mammoth train.

Even with the turns,
Holland starts applying
his air brakes.

They put pressure on the wheels
of each freight car.

The train is now travelling
at 40 km/h.

That's exactly where Holland
wants it to stay.

Once through the curves, though,
Holland's brakeman,
Everett Crown,

notices that the train
is picking up speed.

Frank, we're at 30.

Should be at 25.

The train, actually,
was maintaining its speed.

It might've been picking up
just a little bit,

but... we still had
a long way to go.

It's creeping.

Confused, Holland continues
to increase the pressure
on the air brakes,

but the train
just keeps going faster.

By the time it reached 40 mph...

...I was very concerned.

The train was speeding.

As the train
approaches 72 km/h,

Holland turns his air brakes
on full.

But it doesn't help.

At the bottom of the hill,
the track bends around the town
of San Bernardino.

Frank Holland knows
he's not supposed to go more
than 64 km/h around the corner.

Partway down the hill,
he's already going much faster
than that.

Ruth Green's husband
has left for work.

Her three youngest children
are off to school.

Across the street, Chris Shaw
is just about to take a shower.

Engineer Frank Holland knows
there are several houses
that are right in the way

if his train
comes off the track.

I've been over that territory
many times and, yeah,

I knew that there was a curve
coming down there
and that we weren't gonna make.

At the back of the train,
Engineer Lawrence Hill
also knows they're in trouble.

The air brakes
are turned on full,

but the train
isn't slowing down at all.

Something must be wrong
up there.

Without talking
to the front of the train,

Hill slams on the train's
emergency brakes.

It's their last chance.

The train, at that point,
tried to slow down a little bit.

A couple of seconds later,
it was off to the races.

It just took off like a rocket.

The speed was going up so fast,
I couldn't even believe it.

The emergency brakes
haven't worked.

Smoke begins pouring out
from underneath the train
and it just keeps going faster.

Sixty!

Seventy!

Eighty!

It stopped at 90,
because that's as far
as the speedometer would go.

But Holland knows 7551 East
is still picking up speed.

I'm thinking: My God,
I'm fired.

Actually, that's what I thought.

I'm just looking at everything
that I've done,

I'm trying to go back and see
where I had made a mistake,
what had happened.

7551 to West Colton!

7551 to West Colton!

We're trying to get a hold
of the train dispatcher,
and he won't answer.

The train is out of control
and they can't tell anyone
about it.

At that point,
we were just kinda out there
by ourselves.

Try that phone again!

7551 to West Colton!

West Colton, go ahead.
- We have a slight problem.

At the back of the train,

Engineer Lawrence Hill listens
to the radio call.

I don't know if we can
get this train stopped!

He breaks in, desperate
to tell the dispatcher
how dangerous the situation is.

Mayday! Mayday!
We're doing 90 mph!

9-0! Out of control!

Won't be able to stop
till we hit Colton!

But there's nothing
the dispatcher can do.

The train is travelling
more than 160 km/h.

The houses of San Bernardino
are just seconds away.

Down in the town,
a strange rumbling
breaks the morning calm.

My house began to vibrate.

The house was rattling so hard,

I would've thought
that the windows would've broke.

It just got worse and worse.
By then,

I realized it was the train.

As we were coming up
to that curve,

I looked over at Everett
and I said:
We're gonna die on that curve!

He, uh...

wild-eyed...

Like he was just...
couldn't believe
and just scared to death,

and I'm sure
I looked the same way.

All I knew is that I just put
my feet up there and said,
"Hang on. Here we go.

I never expected to survive.

West Colton!

AGYM Saugus Dispatcher.

Please come in.

We're on the ground here
between Dike and Stover.

Mayday! Mayday!

In the helper engine
at the back of the train,

Engineer Lawrence Hill
desperately calls
the Southern Pacific
dispatcher.

Being at the end of the train
has saved him from injury,

but he's not sure
everyone else has been so
lucky.

SP 7551.

Anybody, please come in!

It takes more
than a minute for Hill to get
a response to his frantic call.

Saugus Dispatcher, 7551 East.
Over.

Saugus Dispatcher,
we are all over the ground here!

I haven't heard anything
from the head end.

They may need some assistance.

We went on the ground!

Incredibly,
Engineer Frank Holland
survives the wreck.

The man in charge of the train
crawls away
from his ruined engine,

the first of the cars
to derail.

Everett. Where's Everett?
We gotta get him.
He's still inside.

Let's get you down first.

He's helped out of the train
by eyewitnesses to the
disaster.

When they pulled me
off the locomotive
and set me down,

it was just...

I just couldn't believe it.

The cars were just mangled,
the locomotives were destroyed.

It was just, you know,
unbelievable devastation.

I just looked back at that
and I went: Oh, my God...

what did I do?

Frank Holland has broken
several ribs.

One of his lungs is punctured.

The man who was riding with him,
Everett Crown,
is soon found dead.

As is Allan Reiss,
the brakeman who was riding
in the third engine.

Footage taken
shortly after the crash
shows the scale of the
disaster.

Seven houses
have been destroyed.

The train itself is a write-off.

As The dust cleared,

then you could see some
of the cars had, you know,
toppled over.

You could see that it looked
like some houses were... gone.

You could see just a twisted,
jumbled...

mass of... of metal,

these cars are turned over.

You're really trying
to grapple with: What is this?
What's happened?

Allan Simpson
is a battalion chief

with the San Bernardino
Fire Department.

The house that we focused on,

with the information that, uh,

the mother gave us
about one individual,

was totally obliterated.

You wouldn't have recognized it
as a house.

It looked like a jumble
somebody had gone through it
with a bulldozer.

They were hollering that
there's somebody still in there.

We later learned
that was where Chris Shaw lived.

And when you looked
at that house,

it was like you would say
there was no way...

anybody could still be alive

under all of that rubble
and wreckage.

The wreckage is also hiding
an explosive problem no one
in the neighbourhood knew
about.

Running alongside the railway,
about two metres
below the ground,

is a pipeline carrying fuel
back up the mountain.

If it's been damaged
in the derailment,

a single spark could cause
a major explosion.

Prior to this incident,

we were not aware that
this pipeline existed and ran
directly behind our homes.

The thought's always
in the back of your mind
if you have something like that:

This is major, a 14-inch pipe
full of pressurized fuel.

We know what that's gonna do
if it ruptures.

The pipeline is operated
by the Calnev Pipeline company.

It pulls hundreds of barrels
of fuel from the pipe,

trying to reduce the size
of any potential explosion.

But much more fuel
remains behind.

Automatic safety valves
in the pipeline

that are supposed to shut off
individual sections
aren't working.

The company can't completely
drain the area
under the derailment.

Almost three hours
after the crash,

rescue workers find the body
of a small child.

He's the second young boy
killed in the disaster.

After we recovered the two
children from the one house,

there wasn't a lot of hope
for finding anybody else
at that point.

But you never give up hope.
You always keep trying.

But there's pressure
to wind the search down.

Every moment spent
looking for Chris Shaw
further delays the cleanup.

And Calnev can't check
the pipeline properly
until the railcars are gone.

An entire neighbourhood
holds its breath.

Is there any chance
Shaw could possibly have lived
through the disaster?

Southern Pacific
train 7551 East has crashed
into San Bernardino,
California.

Four people are dead
and an entire neighbourhood
has been evacuated.

A gas pipeline under the wreck
hasn't been checked yet.

Chris Shaw was in one
of the houses destroyed
when the train derailed.

Twelve hours later,
he's still missing.

George Avery, a firefighter
for less than a year,

takes his shift
at the crash site.

We were ordered
to relieve the crews

that were trying to search
for a body,

and at that time they thought
it was a body recovery.

Shaw is the last person
in the neighbourhood
still to be accounted for.

Workers ask his mother
to draw a map of the house.

She tells them
her son was in the bathroom
when the train derailed.

Workers concentrate
their final search effort
there.

There's pieces
of the house itself sticking out
of this big potash mound,

so you have studs and rafters
and roof covering.

So they gave me a specific area,
so I started removing
the product.

And as I did so for...
it seemed like an eternity,

but it was probably an hour,
1.5 hours,

this void occurred
and started to reveal itself
in front of me.

As Avery reaches
into the opening,

he feels something
snag his jacket.

So then I immediately
pulled it out,

thinking it was caught on a nail
or whatever.

As I pulled it out
and looked inside,

I saw this hand waving in front.

I found him! I found him!!

Help!

Somebody help me!

It takes workers
nearly 1.5 hours to pull
Chris Shaw from the wreckage.

Debris from the train
had formed a protective cocoon
around him.

It gave Shaw air to breathe
and kept the jagged metal
from crushing him.

We were absolutely amazed
that he lived,

especially that long.

We're talking most of the day.

Really didn't think
he had much of a chance.

So when he came up out of there,
it was just stunning.

With Shaw's rescue,

everyone in the neighbourhood
and on the train has been
found.

The wreck of 7551 East
has killed four people,

injured four more
and totally destroyed
seven houses.

Even with Shaw's rescue,
San Bernardino's troubles
aren't over yet.

If the Calnev pipeline
has been damaged,
it could explode at any time,

destroying more homes
and taking more lives.

With that threat
hanging over the neighbourhood,

the search for the cause
of the derailment begins.

William Pugh and Russel Quimby
are with the National
Transportation Safety Board.

By the time the team got there,

it was fairly late
and it was dark,

and the scene looked
like Dante's Inferno.

A lot of wreckage,
a lot of parts still,

particularly the brake parts,
wheels,

red-hot still after 12 hours.

The wheels had gotten so hot,
they'd literally expanded
off the axles.

The friction between
the wheels, the brakes
and the tracks was so intense,

the wheels themselves
began to liquify,

turning to molten steel
as the train sped down the
hill.

Investigators know the train's
brakes couldn't slow it down,
but why?

The next day,
cleanup operations begin.

Southern Pacific needs to clear
its ruined train from the area.

It's the only way
the investigators can work and
Calnev can check its pipeline.

Southern Pacific has all of
the cars moved two days later,

but the ground is still covered
with 7551 East's cargo -

hundreds of tons of trona.

Calnev begins clearing the trona
along the route of the
pipeline.

It's the quickest way
to inspect the line,

and it keeps
the heavy equipment away.

They made five
or six excavations
down to the pipeline

to visually look
at the pipeline.

They felt comfortable
that nothing had penetrated
to the depth of the pipeline.

The fuel
is under incredible pressure.

Any damage could lead
to a massive leak
and possible explosion.

But Calnev finds nothing.

The depth of the pipe
has shielded it
from the storm above.

The pipeline is a vital source
of gas for Las Vegas,
almost 320 km away.

It supplies both civilian
and military customers
in the desert.

There's pressure
to get the gas moving again.

There were a number of people
in the community that thought
it should not be opened.

And supposedly people
in Las Vegas had said
that they had cars

that were worth more
than our homes on Duffy St.
and so fire up the pipeline.

Just four days
after the derailment,

the pipeline is restarted.

Calnev watches for any drop
in pressure.

It would mean fuel was escaping,
that there was a leak somewhere
in the system.

But it holds.

The very same day,

Southern Pacific
finishes its repairs
on the damaged railway.

Trains are once again moving
past San Bernardino.

The cleanup
isn't quite finished, though.

More of the ash-like cargo
of train 7551 East
is littered across the area.

Heavy machinery comes in
to dig it up and haul it away.

The huge machines could easily
damage the pipeline,

so it's carefully marked
with stakes.

I told my husband
one evening that I smelled gas,

but we had been reassured that
they had inspected this line

and that there were no leaks.

I was at the accident site
until it was finally cleaned up

and there was a fence
put around the area and secured,

and it looked
like everything was fine.

Early morning, May 25.

It's been almost two weeks
since 7551 East derailed,

slamming into San Bernardino.

But the cleanup was fast.
For more than a week,

the trains,

and the fuel
in a pipeline below,
have been running smoothly.

Then, from a clear sky,
rain seems to fall.

Large sections
of the neighbourhood are soaked
by this peculiar shower.

Ruth Green is back
in her house when...

For the second time in a month,
she's confronted
with a horrifying sight.

To the left of me,

as far as I could see up,
down or side to side,

was nothing but a big wall
of fire.

I got to the front door,
neighbours were screaming,
"Get out! Get out!"

I ran for my life.

Once again,
the fire department responds
to a major disaster on Duffy
St.

As we're getting
the call and getting on the rig,

and opening the door,
there was no doubt in my mind
what that was.

You could see a huge column
of smoke and flame,

and I knew immediately
it had to be the pipeline.

A tower of smoke and flame
reaches more than 100 metres
into the sky.

Initially,
when we got in there,

we were so close
that the plastic lenses on
the front of the engine melted.

Several of the turn signals,
part of the red lights melted.

There was an intense noise
coming from this...

pipeline,
where it had ruptured.

It sounded like a jet engine.

"Deafening"
is how I would describe it.

And we dealt with that
all day long.

Local firefighters
aren't the only ones
called back to the scene.

I got a call to report
to the chairman's office.

I went down
to the chairman's office,

notified that the pipeline
blew up,

and that I should get my team
together again.

The area looked more or less
like a war zone,
where a lot of damage,

a lot of fire damage
had been done.

Uh, houses in the area were, uh,

incinerated.

Once again, Calnev,
which runs the pipeline,

can't shut its emergency valves.

Almost two-million litres
of fuel burn
for more than seven hours.

By the time the flames are out,
two people are dead,

three more are injured,

another 11 houses
have been destroyed.

The residents of San Bernardino
are in shock.

They talked about the fact
that one of the people
that died,

that all they really could find
was their shoes
that were left in one spot.

And that, you know,
the mental picture of that,

it troubles you quite a bit.

After the fire,
it was over for me.

I just... I couldn't see myself
living in the house anymore.

It really scared me
just that bad.

What people here
will soon learn

is that all of the damage,
pain and suffering

is the result of a simple
horrifying mistake.

A small neighbourhood
in San Bernardino, California,

has been devastated
by two disasters.

In just 13 days,

a train derailment
and a gas explosion
have ripped through the area,

killing six people.

Investigators with the National
Transportation Safety Board
study both accidents.

With the train crash,
they focus on black boxes,

which were recovered
from three of the engines.

And that records, uh,
distance, speed,

throttle position,
air-brake pressures.

We try to figure out what speed
the train eventually got to.
It exceeded the graph.

The black boxes reveal
that 7551 East

had probably reached
the incredible speed

of 177 km/h
before derailing.

The speed limit on the curve
was just over 60 km/h.

Although the train's brakes
had been applied,
it continued accelerating.

How had the train
become so out of control?

Almost all accidents
are a chain of events that link
together to cause the accident.

Of course, any one point,
if you'd broken that link,

you know, the accident
wouldn't have occurred.

Like other freight trains,

7551 East has two different
systems to slow it down:

dynamic brakes...

and air brakes.

Air brakes push a block
against the wheels
of each freight car.

The greater the pressure
applied to the block,
the slower the train goes.

Investigators learn
that the air brakes
were working properly

as the train started
down the hill.

As the train sped up, though,

Engineer Frank Holland
maintained pressure
on the air brakes.

The heat created by the brakes
became so intense
that they melted.

By the time of the crash,
they were useless.

The team turns its focus
to the dynamic brakes.

The dynamic brakes harness
a magnetic field created
by the engines' main generator.

They reverse the magnetic field,
which slows the axles
on the locomotive.

There were four engines
at the front of the train
and two at the back.

Before beginning his trip,

Engineer Frank Holland knew
that his second engine
wasn't working at all,

and that the dynamic brakes
on his fourth engine
were only working sporadically.

Still, it was more than enough.

We figured that with the units
that we had on the head end,

and the two helpers
that they gave us later on,

we could do 30 mph
down that grade with no problem.

When his train starts
down the mountain,

Holland has it under control.

With the brakes he has,
he should be able
to hold his speed,

but he can't.

Frank, we're at 30.

Should be at 25.

It's creeping.

What the NTSB investigators
discover from the black boxes
is stunning.

The brakes on the third engine
at the front of the train
didn't work at all

as 7551 East gathered speed.

During the trip, Holland had
even checked with the brakeman
in the third engine.

- Allan?
- Yeah.

What are your dynamics like?

They're revving.

But the black boxes
show investigators

that even though the dynamic
brakes were making the noise
they usually make,

they weren't working.

They weren't helping
slow the train down at all.

But it gets worse.

Coupled and... ready to go.

- Roger that.
- Of the two engines added
to the back of the train,

one didn't have
any braking power either.

Lawrence Hill,
the engineer at the back,
knew it,

but he never told Frank Holland.

He didn't communicate to him
he had only one locomotive...

dynamic; the other one was out.

The helper engineer thought
that the dispatcher

would notify the lead engineer.

- Calling the helper.
- This is the helper.

You got all your dynamics?

Yeah, I'm in full.

So when Holland asks Hill
at the back of the train

if he has all of his dynamics,
Hill says yes.

But he only means
in the one engine.

It's a startling discovery.

Holland doesn't have
anywhere near the braking power
he thinks he does.

Investigators studying
the black boxes uncover
one more secret

of the train's terrifying ride
down the mountain.

Something must be wrong
up there.

When Lawrence Hill pulled
the emergency brakes,

he actually cancelled out
the dynamic brakes.

It's a safety feature
to keep the wheels from locking

and the train from sliding
down the tracks.

In this case,
with the air brakes melting,

the dynamic brakes
were the only thing
holding the train back.

Putting the emergency brakes on
actually sped the train up.

When the emergency brakes
are applied,

what happens is you lose
your dynamic braking
and you get a runaway train.

But Pugh is still puzzled.

According to all the paperwork,

7551 East was hauling
3.5 million kilos of cargo.

At that weight,
even with his crippled engines,

Holland should've been able
to hold his speed
going down the mountain.

To find out why he couldn't,

investigators turn
their attention to the days
before the accident.

7551 East was pulling a shipment
for Lake Minerals.

Five days before the trip began,

the company's superintendent
drops off the proper paperwork
with Thomas Blair,

who works for Southern Pacific.

The paperwork outlines
what's in the shipment
and normally how much it
weighs.

Thanks.

In this case, though,
the weight was not filled in.

Lake Minerals believed
each of the cars was filled
to its maximum: 90,000 kilos.

Hey!

Hey!

Since that's what the company
expected,

Lake Minerals didn't think
there was any reason
to put the number down.

But Blair knows that to fill out
the proper computer forms,
he'll need to have a weight,

or the train won't be able
to leave the trainyard.

Blair has been working with
Southern Pacific for 17 years.

He's seen thousands
of freight cars leave his yard.

He makes an educated guess

that the material
in each car on the train
weighs 54,000 kilos.

But Blair's guess
is a tragic miscalculation.

Every single freight car
on 7551 East

is actually carrying
36,000 kilos more material
than he estimated.

Across 69 cars,

it means the train is actually
more than six jumbo jets,

2.5 million kilos heavier
than anyone thinks it is.

Nobody caught the fact
that the weights were way under.

Train orders, train lists
and tonnage profile.

From then on, uh...

the engineer had a profile
of the train that showed
6,100 tons.

He operated that way,

and it was wrong,
it was dramatically wrong.

I mean, that was only two-thirds
the weight of that train.

That train was doomed
and we just didn't know it.

Frank Holland was in trouble
before his trip began.

Even if all of his engines
were working,

it would've been
a difficult trip
down the mountain.

With all of the problems he had,
he simply didn't have the power
to slow his enormous train
down.

Crashing into San Bernardino
was all but inevitable
from the beginning.

The wreck of 7551 East
was a preventable disaster.

Investigators are about
to discover that the explosion
which followed

didn't have to happen either.

In May of 1989,

twin disasters shatter the town
of San Bernardino, California.

A train derailment
and a gas-line explosion

kill six people and destroy
more than a dozen houses.

Investigators comb
through the ashes to learn
how the two events are linked.

The pipeline was two metres
below ground.

And in the days
after the derailment,
Calnev examined it closely.

They couldn't find a single dent
or crack where the train
had broken through the earth.

The train crash hadn't seemed
to weaken the pipeline.

And when gas began pumping
through the pipe,

there was no loss of pressure,
no warning sign of a problem.

They started operating,

and brought it up
to about 1,600 pounds,

and all of the pressure readings
at various places along
the pipeline looked normal.

Since the derailment itself
didn't cause the rupture,

investigators continue
their search.

They study the pipeline
for clues.

Even though the fire burned
for hours,

the piece of pipe that burst
has not been destroyed.

When the pipe opened up,
it caused a rupture in the pipe

that was sort of what we term
as a fish-mouth shape.

And at the widest area,

it was about four inches wide,
and about 2.5 feet long.

Like forensic investigators,

the NTSB looks
for a tell-tale fingerprint

that will help them discover
how the pipe broke.

Near the spot
where the pipe ruptured,

investigators find dents
and several deeper gouges.

The marks are like wounds
on a murder victim.

If investigators can find out
what caused the marks,

they'll discover what caused
the pipeline to burst.

We knew that, uh,

there were deposits
of hardened steel
left in the gouges.

We knew that whatever piece
of equipment had damaged
the pipe

had teeth on it that were, uh,
hardened steel.

There are several
possible suspects.

A number of front-end loaders
and one large backhoe
used during the cleanup

all had hardened steel teeth.

But Batten can never pinpoint
the blame.

Well, the NTSB...

determined that the damage
to the pipeline was done

during one of two phases:

either the cleanup
of the train wreckage,

or it was done during the time
in which the trona
was being cleaned up

after the train wreckage
had been removed.

Two mistakes resulted
in a pair of disasters
for San Bernardino...

...and the death of six people.

In its final report
on the disasters,

the NTSB doesn't blame
Frank Holland,

saying his belief
that he had enough braking
power to stop the train

was perfectly reasonable.

Holland still rides the rails,

but he's never made the trip
down the San Gabriel Mountains
again.

Psychologically,
I just don't think
I could take it.

I don't think
I could relive that.

Every time I went down,
I would relive it.

And, uh,
I choose not to do that.

It'd just be too painful.

Calnev, the company
that operated the pipeline,

was called to account for not
checking it after the cleanup
operations were completed.

Lawsuits against the company
were settled out of court.

Calnev, in hindsight, I think,

would agree that they should
have been much more thorough
in their inspection.

They got comfortable
with what they saw,

and they made an assessment
without adequate information

that it was an undamaged
pipeline and okay to operate.

Thomas Blair,
who incorrectly filled in
the paperwork,

was never charged.

But after the disaster,
Southern Pacific
changed its rules,

so that every freight car
without a specified weight

was assumed to be carrying
its maximum allowable load.

Southern Pacific also settled
a number of lawsuits
out of court.

The company no longer exists.

It was bought out
years after the disaster.

Trains continue to run
past San Bernardino,

but many of the families
involved in the disaster
moved away.

Trains are still coming down
out of Cajon Pass.

And so a person couldn't help
but go, in their mind,
go to where: What if?

That this thing
could happen again.

Houses aren't allowed
beside the tracks anymore.

All that's left
is an ugly scar of land.

There is no monument here
to mourn those who died.

Or to mark the day when disaster
came to Duffy St.

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